tion of ambitious pride, but in subserviency to this one grand principle of action,—the name of Christ he has done it from the persuasion that whatever study shall enable him more clearly to display the evidence, more satisfactorily to interpret the letter, and more ably to defend the cause of the Gospel against its assailants, cannot but form a most important part of the preparation required of a Christian minister. Thus then adorned with every moral excellence, supplied with every grace of learning human and divine, rich in that faith which is the concurrence of the understanding and the will, is he summoned to enter upon his high and holy office. His duties have been too seriously studied, his future conduct too long anticipated, to need either enumeration or enforcement from this place. To him as a Christian, as a son of our church, as a minister of the Gospel, with peculiar force is addressed the precept of the Apostle, "Whatsoever thou doest in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." He is called upon, not only to act upon this principle himself, but to inculcate it upon the consciences and feelings of others. Let every Christian virtue be enforced upon Christian motives; let him never forget the high and leading doctrines of the Gospel dispensation, which can alone controul, and counteract the influence of passion. Man cannot live

without the name of the Lord Jesus, without the hopes of a Redeemer, without the assurance, comfort, and co-operation, from above; and if these living waters be denied him from the pure fountains of true religion, he will seek them amidst the turbid streams of enthusiasm and error. Most fatal, therefore, will be the neglect of the Christian minister, if he omits the urgent, the repeated, the full enforcement of this powerful and commanding motive. All exhortation, all precept, unless in union with this principle, is but a useless display of cold and artificial rhetoric. If the name of Christ be forgotten, in what name can he proclaim to the children of wrath, the glad tidings of pardon and peace? Under what authority can he sound an alarm to a sinful and infatuated creation? In the name of Christ he received his awful commission, and in the same name must that commission be executed. Is he fearful that his ministry will be branded with fanaticism, and his doctrine derided as extravagant? Let him beware, lest his very fears become the instruments of their own completion, lest his very dread of the increase of enthusiasm should add vigour to its growth, and strength to its cause. It is not in the refinements of philosophizing morality, it is not in the effeminacy of popular theology, nor in a mean compromise of every religious doctrine, that the

Church of England grounds her opposition to the efforts of fanaticism. He that would successfully oppose its spirit, in any stage of its progress, must take his stand upon those high principles, which are perverted and misapplied by it. He that would successfully point out the absurdities of error must fortify himself strongly within the fortress of truth. It is on the neglect of Christian motives, and Christian principles, that fanaticism takes its rise. It is from their admixture with truth, that its errors gain and support their influence. When profligacy or indolence, disgrace the lives of the minister or his flock; when every article of the Christian faith is lost in oblivion, enervated by refinement, or lowered down to the standard of selfish and sensual practice, it is in vain, that they indulge themselves in idle invective against the extrava gancies of enthusiasm. They themselves are the authors of its influence, and the ministers of its contagion.

Let not our very apprehensions be the cause of our fall. It is not from the constancy of our faith, from the fervency of our zeal, or from the innocence of our lives, that fanaticism will claim us as its disciples; but from the application of these high and heavenly qualities, to the meanest and most earthly purposes; from the prostitution of the name of our Redeemer, to the pro

motion of the interests and the extension of a party.

Let the Christian minister, undismayed, disclose the mysteries of the kingdom of God, as they have been revealed to man in the dispensation of the Gospel. It is for him to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation and grace, upon the terms which God has been pleased to affix to them; it is his commission to teach his flock to hope without presumption, and to fear without despair: it is for him to bind up the wounds of the afflicted, and, in the name of his Saviour, to sanctify the sorrows of a broken heart. Let him display the promises of the Gospel in all their vivid colours. The cross of Christ will shine forth with a light too victorious for infidelity to withstand, or enthusiasm to pervert.

Such is the high and commanding ground upon which our Church erects her standard, such the foundation on which her bulwarks rest, even on the name of Christ. Let not her towers be undermined, nor her strength diminished by an abandonment of this one predominant motive and principle; much less, while assailed by a combination even of the most contrary powers, let her walls be sapped by the stagnant waters of indolence and sensuality. Whether it shall please the almighty Disposer of all human events, long to preserve this his chosen Zion, as the repository

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of his faith, as the ark of his covenant, as a blessing on this favoured nation; or whether it shall seem good to afflict her with those tribulations, which, as a visible church, she is doomed to undergo; she will still remain in the hearts of those, who in the name of the Lord Jesus have thus dedicated themselves to her service: their veneration, their duty, their obedience to this representative of their Saviour upon earth, will upon this one principle remain unchanged, and their affection unimpaired. Though her fabric should crumble to the dust, they will still look forward with the eye of faith to that blessed period, when from the congregation of the faithful here below, she, in the persons of her children, shall be translated to the communion of saints above, when from her militant and afflicted state here upon earth, she shall reign for ever triumphant in heaven!